


The Bodily Habit

by Syrinx



Series: Chimerical [9]
Category: Thoroughbred
Genre: Angst, F/M, Male Protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-11
Updated: 2009-10-11
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:29:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrinx/pseuds/Syrinx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inure: to accustom to hardship, difficulty, pain, etc.; toughen or harden</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bodily Habit

Every so often, Brad Townsend thinks that something cosmic will happen. Some turn of good fortune, a piece of luck, a blessing. He’s due. Overdue, if he wanted to be honest. On his good days, he wants to think that he is an honest man. If he was desperate, he’d be demanding, angry, and that certainly isn’t him. Not yet.

He imagines it could be, eventually. Easily. He hopes fate will come for him first.

In a way, he considers New York a blessing. The jagged Manhattan cityscape rises around him like broken teeth, and he likes the rotten smell and the steaming asphalt under his shoes. It’s a marked difference, a way to be lost, and he knows with simple assurance that the city is the only thing keeping him honest.

Here, Townsend Acres is a distant memory. There is no room for tranquility, thundering hooves, stretches of pasture that blur to the horizon on gentle hills. There is no room for all of her looks, all of her assumptions, all of _her_.

But that’s not right. It’s not her that drives him to the city. He made this decision before her, but he thinks how odd it is that desire to stay away from home meant a desire to stay away from her. Eventually. How odd now that the two intertwine. He can’t tell them apart anymore.

He cannot stand her. Based on a history of fights and misunderstandings, the feeling is mutual. They both want the same things, and there isn’t enough for either of them. He knows she hates him, and he’s only cultivated that loathing, tempered it to perfection, and he’s done so knowingly because something will eventually break.

He will have his time, he thinks.

He will.

*

It’s a chilled April day, and his feet sink into the soggy earth. The grass is a thick sea of emerald green, and the horses dot it endlessly. There is a group of trees further out, on the hill behind the broodmare paddocks, and he avoids looking at it. He knows what’s there, and he doesn’t have to see the fresh dirt to prove anything to himself.

That’s not really why he’s here.

When he got the call, the only thing he remembers is dropping his phone. It broke into two pieces, the battery skidding under the sofa and the rest of the phone clattering dead at his feet. Manhattan smiled at him outside his window.

_Fuck,_ he thinks, right before he thinks nothing at all.

He can’t explain anything that he does in the next twenty-four hours. He can’t explain his urge to buy a plane ticket as soon as he gets his phone back together, can’t explain the plans he cancels, the plans he makes instead. He can’t explain the knot of panic in his chest.

That, if he was being honest with himself, is a lie. Of course it is. He’s good at lying, especially to himself.

*

The broodmare barn smells like hay and milk and horse. It smells like hope and broken promises. There is nothing more wonderful than falling under the spell of the foals, and he’s done it so often, so consistently, that he is well aware of the pitfalls. The disappointments, and failures, and outright horrors that some of these fragile beginnings will see. Because he’s seen it all, or so he likes to think.

He thinks she hasn’t. He might be right; what does he know? It doesn’t matter, not in the end. And this is the end. Right down to the freshly made box stall, and the figure he finds hunched against its wall.

She sits with her legs pressed to her chest, her cheek resting against her knobby knees. She’s all dirty denim and worn fabric, her dingy flannel shirt hanging uselessly around a tank top that he is sure hasn’t seen a washing machine in weeks. He wonders if she’s bathed; her hair falls across her listless, open eyes, tangles down over her arm. He can’t see her booted feet, tucked as they are under the bedding.

It’s still straw, he notices. It’s likely they will move another mare into the stall, a deserving animal ready to give the farm a new hope. It will happen as soon as she removes herself from the stall, and he and everyone else knows that this won’t happen soon.

She is Ashleigh Griffen. She’s nothing if not stubborn.

But this isn’t the girl he knows, the girl he thinks he knew. Dimly, he wonders if she’s broken.

Maybe she is. Maybe she’s far gone. He looks at her, with her eyes trained on the straw, and has to stop himself from feeling disappointment.

He only ever wanted to be the one to break her.

*

“What are you doing here?” She says it monotonously, like she’s barely aware of him on the fringe of her vision.

“My father called me,” is all he can think to say. It’s the truth, if vague. She smiles mirthlessly against her jeans.

“And you just had to come by? See the whole thing for yourself?”

“Ashleigh.”

“Don’t,” she interrupts, lifting her head and resting it against the wall. She looks at him, hate and venom swirling in her vision, and he knows she despises this. He’s looking at her like she’s pathetic, and she is, and he supposes this is going to be his grand moment. This is fate handing him everything he ever wanted.

It’s not good enough.

*

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she tells him. “You’re not. So let’s just skip it, okay?”

Irony has never been lost on him. The worst thing about all of this is that he is, deeply, sorry. “Let’s not,” he tells her, and she stiffens at the words. He lets himself into the stall, pushes the door behind him until it clicks shut.

“Stop.” It’s a warning, but he doesn’t pay attention. He never has, and won’t start now.

“No,” he says. “Maybe I’m not upset about this for all your reasons, but that mare was an asset the farm can’t afford to lose.”

She sneers at him, because he has said the wrong thing. Of course, anything he could have said would have been wrong.

“Don’t turn this into a financial complication,” she spits, shoving her hands into the straw and pushing herself up against the wall. She stands, wobbling like her legs can’t hold her, and he wonders for a moment if she’ll collapse at his feet. She braces herself, staring at him. There are tear tracks down from her waterlogged eyes. “You wanted her bred to that monster. That one stallion. And I let you. I listened to you twist it all to your favor and what do we have now, Brad? What did we get out of it?”

“As poetic as it would be,” he tells her, snide and snarling, “this is not my fault.”

She glares at him, digging her fingers into the wood plank walls.

“And if it is,” he tells her, because he can’t resist, “it’s just as much your fault as it is mine.”

“Fuck you.” She sets her jaw, her bloodshot eyes glazing in a way he’s sure can only end in havoc. He sets himself without realizing it, because she shoves herself from the wall and at him, her small body colliding with his hard enough to send him back a step. Maybe two. She’s light as a feather, and her wrists are bone thin as they send delicate fisted fingers against his chest.

“Fuck,” she cries, hitting him hard enough in the center of his chest to send him back another step. He’s surprised by that, just enough to grab her hands as she rests her forehead against his shirt, in hysterics now and crying. Her whole body shakes in sobs. His shirt will be a damp mess, and she’s sagging against him, clinging until she forces him down to his knees in the straw.

She follows him down, her body coming to a rest in his lap. Her thighs straddle his, her legs splayed awkwardly, forgotten in the straw. He can feel her fingers piercing into his shoulders, pinching the fabric of his shirt. She cries, and the only thing he can do is keep her still against him, his hands at her back. His fingers touch her spine and she shifts closer, her breaths rapid and hot against his collarbone.

“Don’t,” she whispers through ragged breaths, her mouth inches from his neck so that it is easily the most uncomfortable thing he’s ever experienced. He can feel himself respond, hard underneath her already. He’d like to tell his body to fuck off, would like to say he’s horrified by his reaction to this, but she just shifts like she knows when he knows she’s clueless and he’s lost again.

She sucks in a halting breath, her ribs shaking and constricting under his hands. “Don’t tell me you’re fucking sorry.”

“Too bad for you,” he tells her. “I am.”

“Stop talking,” she orders, and to his horror he obeys. She whispers it again, just in case he didn’t hear. “Stop talking.”

He wants to shove her off of him, let her rot in her pain there in the stall. Instead his hands just clench around her sides when she shifts closer to him, her body coming up against his. He feels her lips against his jaw, her breath wet on his skin.

She’s making a decision. He realizes it all too late.

*

“Ashleigh,” he says, and she shakes her head. Her lips brush his skin, and it’s an effort not to throw her off of him and pull her closer.

“No.” She is the one to press closer, the straw shifting under her knees and her breasts pressing against his chest. He swallows.

“Stop talking,” she repeats. He hates that he is so inclined to follow her demands. He hates her, more than anything, right at this moment.

He does nothing. She lifts her head to look at him, eye to eye. He stares at her, watches the cogs turn over in her head, knows exactly why she’s choosing this path. He recognizes grief. The question is if he wants to be a part of it. A part of him wonders if he even has a choice.

She is shivering all over, and he thinks it’s force of will alone that makes her mouth meet his. He doesn’t have a word for why he accepts, takes the press of her lips and wraps a hand around her neck. His fingers tangle in her oily hair, and he doesn’t care, not even when she opens her mouth and surges against him so suddenly their teeth clash.

This is the end. He knows it. Knows that if her hatred was all talk, it will be concrete, resolute, if he lets her continue. They sit in Wonder’s stall. A barren, empty stall. She’s in his lap and they are kissing as if they’d rather devour each other. There is no backward step from this. But there is no choice for him.

That’s fate for you. Giving you everything you wanted with a wink and a sideways smile.

*

She tugs at his shirt, desperately, hopelessly, yanks it off his torso and over his head, off his arms with an impatience that shows her condition. He can do nothing but obey, without question, follow her quaking movements with his own surefire grip. There is a part of him that is resolved not to take the initiative. If she’s going to use this against him later, she’ll have nothing to grasp.

This is probably why she hates him, but this doesn’t enter his occupied mind.

Her fingers trail down his skin, and his grasp her shirt. The flannel is soft in his hands, but he doesn’t do anything with it. She pulls away from his mouth with an irritated mewl, her hands leaving him to shove the shirt off her arms, casting it behind her. He watches her shed her tank, the dirty white material leaving her glowing tan skin like she’s shucking off a protective shell. She’s beautiful underneath.

“Please,” is all she says against his mouth, her tongue slipping slick against his as his arms wrap around her bare back. Hands against skin, against spine, against bra clasp. He’s supposed to undo it. He knows how this works. He won’t.

She’s impatient, and he isn’t. He’s curious. Sickeningly so. He should be ashamed. Maybe he will be, later. Maybe he’ll even regret it all, while she twists in his hands and is forced to take the first steps. Her breasts, small and firm against the cups of the bra, are beacons, and he traces over them with his fingers. Maybe he won’t undress her, he theorizes, but he will take what she’s offering.

A strangled noise leaves her throat, and she pushes away from his mouth. Her fingers claw at the bra clasp, undoing it like she’d rather rip it apart. The scrap of fabric goes somewhere. He doesn’t notice, not really. Instead her hands are pulling him, her back arching, and his mouth goes where she wants it. Where he wants it. Whatever.

She bends back, so far he lets her nipple go with a wet smack. She lands in the straw with a gasp, the harsh stalks pressing patterns against her back. The impressions will be deep, he thinks, especially when she reaches forward and grabs the waist of his jeans, hauls him toward her, between her legs, on top of her with expectations glinting across her eyes.

He traces his fingers across her breasts, down her ribs and her stomach. Her shivering doesn’t stop, not when she kisses him again, not when she presses his palm against her skin.

He won’t undo her jeans. Won’t undo his. She growls in frustration and shoves his hand away to tackle their pants. She’s surprisingly deft with the buttons, with the zippers, but she’s focused and he wouldn’t put anything past her. Not when she’s like this. When she’s like this she can accomplish anything.

The straw must be uncomfortable against her back, but he doesn’t do anything about it. He just watches her haul her jeans off her slim hips, her underwear slipping down with them. They can only go so far, her boots presenting problems neither even considered, but she wiggles and he shifts for her, following her movements to settle between her thighs. Her pants wrinkle down to her ankles, and he maneuvers them, her hands shoving his jeans down just far enough. Her fingers slide across his skin, onto him as she pushes away his boxers.

He twitches, reality pushing in like a spike.

“Ash,” he mutters, and she hisses. Yes. Shut up. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself, but she’s obviously chosen a different path. Same objective. He rears back, reaching into his back pocket to haul out his wallet. Inside there is a condom in a tired wrapper. She looks at him expressionlessly as he shoves the wallet back in the pocket it came from, barely glances at the fist in which he holds the condom. It’s his fingers on her sex that drives her head back, because now he can’t delay things. One moment of thought will ruin it all, and he is a man. He’d rather thinking be delayed for a while.

He doesn’t ask. Doesn’t want to know. Instead he just slips his fingers in and watches her gasp, writhe beneath him, her face an indecipherable painting of need and pain. He’s probably right, then. He pulls his fingers gently back and watches the slithering traces of blood across the wet.

*

Trembling. He wishes he could make this hers, somehow. She’s already started so much, and she will hate him so much later, but either way he figures he’s fucked. So he rips the condom open and draws it down his length. He’s surprised to find her fingers there after his, like she’s chosen this moment to be brave again. Coward, he thinks. Even now.

She draws her hand across him, so he waits, lets her guide. He puts his mouth to use, licking one breast into his mouth, releasing it for the other. She squirms, presses him against her, slides him only so far into her before she stops with a moan.

He pushes the rest of the way. He takes this by inches, watches her face and the apex of her thighs. Her breath comes in shallow sips while he rests in her, lets her muscles wrap around him before he moves again. It’s not so long before they have a rhythm, her eyes drifting to his and holding. He says not a word, because he knows. This is what she wants. A reminder. A punishment. Whatever it is that drowns out everything else, he respects and follows.

The button of his jeans presses against her skin. The zipper bites. Her ankles are bound by her clothes, but she bucks against him regardless when he picks up the pace. She reaches for him blindly, pulls him firmly over her and captures his mouth. He responds in kind, hard, like he has no option.

There is a gasp and a moment of stillness. An ache that is a blessing. He doesn’t remember tumbling after.

*

Afterward he’s on his back in the straw. He’s limp, the condom irritating. He doesn’t do anything about it yet.

She is sitting up, her fingers shaking as she reaches for her pants and panties crushed to her ankles. He closes his eyes, doesn’t want to watch her get dressed. Doesn’t want to watch the tears spring up in her eyes again, because he can hear them, slipping in, already trying to break the surface of whatever it is they lost themselves in.

Maybe she never lost herself to begin with.

He opens his eyes, finds her staring down at him. She’s dressed, if sloppily. It’s not an improvement from before. He’d like to know what she’s thinking, but she says nothing. Instead he watches her look out to the aisle, like she’s considering something she’s never wanted to face before.

She doesn’t look back at him when she leaves the stall.

He listens to her footsteps drift down the aisle. Sweat dries on his skin, and he wants so badly to kick the fuck out of something. Instead he stays in the straw, feeling the stalks press patterns on his back.

Somewhere, he hears a mare sigh.

 

 


End file.
